Jamelle Bouie

Recent Articles

I want to quickly highlight this chunk from James Wagoner's great post on the Stupak Amendment at RH Reality Check: I believe pro-choice leaders may have made a fatal mistake in not challenging the Democrats’ 2004 decision to recruit and run anti-choice candidates. They believed Democratic leadership when they were told that the pro-choice agenda would not be undermined by these newly elected anti-choice Democrats because Democratic leaders in the House and Senate would “have their backs” on policy issues. Well, so much for political assurances. Pro-choice leaders must now recognize that they have fallen victim to a classic “bait and switch” with Democrats telling pro-choice advocates they couldn’t save them from Stupak because they just didn’t have the votes. Gee, wonder why? Couldn’t have anything to do with all those anti-choice Democrats elected since 2004 could it? This is a good time to mention political scientist Paul Frymer's...

Lately, I've been fascinated by Cornell Law School professor William A. Jacobson 's blog . Although most of his posts are boilerplate wingnuttia -- health-care reform is tyranny, diplomacy is weakness, etc. -- there are a few gems here and there, most notably with his ongoing attempt to document liberal use of "the race card" which he defines as "the use of false accusations of racism to shape the political debate and stifle political opposition." Jacobson is nearly 60 posts deep into this series , and after reading all of them, I am forced to conclude that he has no idea what he's talking about. For example, Jacobson attacks this mostly factual observation by Matthew Yglesias as a set of "gross generalizations and stereotypes of the politically acceptable kind": The diversity issues that you see at the elite level of most of American life are, in my opinion, particularly egregious in the punditry world. People whose job is largely to express a point of view really ought to come from...

Hello, everyone! My name is Jamelle Bouie and I will be your friendly neighborhood guest blogger for this week. I already have a couple posts on tap (har har har) for today, but before I get to those, it's worth offering up a few biographical details. I grew up in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and I studied politics at the University of Virginia. As of now, I'm hanging out in Charlottesville and working for the university while I figure out what I want to do with my life. As far as the Internets are concerned, I come to you by way of two places: PostBourgie (from which previous guest-blogger Shani O. Hilton hails) and the League of Ordinary Gentlemen . In any case, I'm super excited to be here this week, so let's start it up! -- Jamelle Bouie